When I rejoined Temple’s faculty in 2012 after a two-year hiatus, I had one overarching goal: to improve the sense of community among Temple’s business law alumni, students, and friends. Temple has, of course, long been known for its trial advocacy. But the Law School has over the years also produced many extraordinarily successful business lawyers, and developed a fairly deep Faculty bench on corporate, commercial, tax and related law. Students seemed to be increasingly interested in exploring business law careers.
Yet, no one thinks of business law when they think of Temple. I wanted to change that.
I decided that one step in this larger project might be a newsletter by and about members of the Temple business law community, which I wanted to call The Temple 10-Q, to connect to the work that many of our alumni do in securities law. But I knew I couldn’t do it alone. I wandered the halls of the Law School, discussing this with colleagues. All thought it was a good idea, and said that they would be willing to contribute. But none said what I had hoped to hear, which was that they wanted to be a co-editor on this project.
Except Professor Dave Hoffman. He volunteered to be a co-editor, and has brought to the task the tremendous energy and insights that any of his students or colleagues would instantly recognize. As many of you may know, Professor Hoffman has accepted an offer to teach at a good law school in West Philadelphia, and therefore will not be able to continue as co-editor of the 10-Q.
So, one goal here is to say thank you and farewell to Dave Hoffman.
Needless to say, Dave’s presence at Temple will be sorely missed. He has been a great colleague, friend and mentor to many on the Faculty. His contributions to the growth of the Law School, and its business law program, have been immense. His scholarship helped to set new standards of excellence for the Faculty. And, while his students sometimes found him intimidating, all recognized that his ultimate goal was to help them learn to be as successful as possible. We are happy for Dave and our friends at Penn, but obviously it is a bittersweet state of affairs for us at the Law School.
Happily, Professor Salil Mehra, who is likely familiar to many readers of The 10-Q, has agreed to join The 10-Q team as co-editor. Professor Mehra is an internationally recognized expert in competition, cyberspace and intellectual property law, as well as the law of Japan. He is a stellar teacher and insightful about an unusual range of things (talk to him about real estate or comics, if you get a chance). These areas of interest will further expand the scope of The 10-Q’s business law coverage and, I hope, help our community continue to grow.
So, while I am sad to see Dave leave, I am happy for his good fortune, and equally happy that Salil has agreed to join us.
As always, if you wish to contribute to The 10-Q, please contact us, here. If you would like to join our community on Linkedin, you can do so here.